Rajapaksa’s Forgotten Chintana And The Deafening Silence On Electoral Reform
By Kath Noble -October 17, 2012
Kath Noble
The Local Government Elections Act was amended last week, with no debate either inside or outside Parliament. But was the change genuinely uncontroversial? I don’t think so.
Given that the process was initiated in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the 18th Amendment, we should have been more suspicious. The18th Amendment was part of Mahinda Rajapaksa‘s post-war strategy to tighten his grip on power. He was thinking about how to make use of a moment at which he enjoyed unprecedented popularity to achieve what is best for him. Are we really to believe that reforms to the voting system announced just a few weeks later were about what is best for the country?
People have a general sense that Proportional Representation is problematic, which leads them to assume that a mixture of Proportional Representation and First Past the Post – the new legislation calls for 30% of seats to be decided using Proportional Representation and 70% using First Past the Post – would be better.
The argument goes as follows. The country is unstable with Proportional Representation, since it is difficult for any one party to achieve a majority. Proportional Representation also leads to violence during elections, as candidates fight each other for preference votes. They have to spend more since constituencies are larger and they have to cover a larger area, leading to more corruption. And it is more difficult for voters to hold their elected representatives to account. First Past the Post disadvantages minority parties, but what is being proposed is a compromise.
Will the reforms actually solve any of these problems? Are they even the problems that need solving?
When it comes to accountability, it seems to me that voters will have even less chance of controlling politicians under the new legislation. At the moment, people can choose between candidates while maintaining their allegiance to a party. This is important. They need not vote for a party whose policies they don’t agree with simply because they don’t like the individual the party has nominated in their area. I bet plenty of UNP supporters stayed at home or even backed Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election rather than cast their vote for Sarath Fonseka. That is what happens when choices are limited.
